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Today In Fact, 28 October

Even old men can be revolutionaries. Angelo Roncalli was just meant to be a filler Pope. The cardinals couldn’t decide and after 11 rounds of voting they chose Cardinal Roncalli at the age of 77 to just be a caretaker Pope. He was made the Bishop of Rome today in 1958.

He called the Second Vatican Council and although he was dead by the time it was concluded, Pope John XXIII had wrought a revolution in the dusty mire of Catholic religiosity. The Vatican Council proclaimed that all people of good conscience were saved, no matter their religion. The celebration of the Mass was also changed to use local languages. To bring such change within the old ragged Catholic Church places this old man as a true revolutionary.